WHEN SHOULD WE STOP POLISHING?
WHEN SHOULD WE STOP POLISHING?
I'm re-reading the ART OF PRACTICE book, because instinct tells me there is something valuable for me, something that some part of me doesn't want to "get." I've now identified about 30 core ideas and clumped them into five categories:
How to do it.
In what order to practice elements
How intensely to practice
Which sort of skills this works for (how to determine if this program is appropriate for you)
The inner game: how to FEEL about your practice.
In other words, your belief systems, mental syntax, and use of physiology. Modeling. Trying to extract the most important aspects is critical to me, the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHY, HOW, WHEN of it.
Once upon a time, I read THE SCIENCE OF GETTING RICH by Wallace D. Wattles. The story was that this was a foundational work for THE SECRET, a book and practice that annoys me, because its adherants usually seem to believe that "wanting" something enough will bring it to them. I have one question for them, and an answer:
Q: when do you know you want something enough?
A: When you get your butt off the couch and WORK for it fanatically.
(this is, of course, why you need to choose your goals very carefully, so that you can throw yourself into them completely without fear of imbalance or hurting others).
Anyway, the book was short, I was desperate to get out of a miserable emotional state, and I dug in. And to my shock and surprise, after I read it I couldn't remember a single thing in the book. It was bizarre, and I'll cut to the chase: the answer was that the book said that GRATITUDE was a major element of success and achievement. That in essence, my anger with being in a situation was poisoning my ability to find a way out of it. My negative emotions had shut down my problem solving. I did NOT want to release my negative emotions. But I had to. And the day I admitted I needed to do it, and found the way to accomplish this (the Morning Ritual) my healing started and I devised an excellent plan to resolve my problem.
My assumption is that my instinct that there is something really important in this book…but that I can't quite figure out what it is, and that this might be a similar blind spot. I DON'T think it is as major. Something smaller and more generalized.
But I’m going to go through the same process of re-reading and simplifying until I have just about five aspects, little enough that the youngest part of me can understand. That was how I devised the MAGIC formula, after all. So let me take one of these five aspects every day, in rotation, until I've nailed this.
Hopefully, you'll find some value in me mulling this over in public. Helps me think.
So…the first element is "how to do it." How to practice for maximum growth. How to practice the way the "naturals" do. And the most important single notion here seems to be:
Non-naturals, amateurs, try to get a skill100% perfect before they move on. "Naturals", professionals, only try to get it to 90% then move to a higher skill that is about 10% out of their reach. Why? Because we are excited while in a high-intensity learning context, stimulated by the newness. As soon as we start feeling "oh, I know this" that high stimulation diminishes, and you are no longer triggering the same deep response. Instead of adventuring, you are plodding asymptotically toward a horizon that continues to recede. YOU CANNOT GET TO 100%! So on one level we all understand that we need to go on to the next skill before the current one is "perfected."
But let's look at this. That "90%" thing is subjective to a degree. Sloppy people might think they are at 90% when then are really at 30%. And neurotic perfectionists might get to 97% and think they are only at 40%. "Its not ready to go submit!" they whine. Then spend forever trying to polish a short story until there are no flaws, not realizing that the more they polish, the sharper grows their power of discernment, such that they could spend a lifetime polishing a single story…AND NEVER GETTING ANY BETTER.
Why? Because you will learn more by going on to your next story ONCE YOU'VE REACHED 90% than you will by endlessly polishing that one.
BINGO! I just connected this to previous understandings. The "Lifewriting" principle says to write and submit 1-4 stories a month, and NOT to rewrite once submitted…unless by editorial request.
That is close enough to this principle for me to stop today. That's a "win." Wow. I think that this isn't something that will trigger me. It just something on which I lack clarity.
More tomorrow!
And we'll be talking about this on the FIREDANCE podcast Saturday at noon Pacific!
Steven Barnes is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Firedance...The Next Level
Time: Jun 3, 2023 12:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84839490050?pwd=aHN3NWlIUno2VEZ6d0dqeFNvaUZLQT09
Meeting ID: 848 3949 0050
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